Gender Inequalities

Diana P. Restrepo
Prof. Andrew Smith
ENC 1102
April 21, 2011
Gender Inequalities in the Music Industry
Gender inequalities take place every day in many different industries and settings including the workplace, politics, and even in the sports industry. These industries are often talked about. However, one of the industries that we do not hear about all too often is the entertainmentindustry. In the movie the Preacher’s Kid, viewers can see how gender inequalities in the entertainment industry are still present. In this movie, the preacher’s daughter starts a journey to pursue her dream, but quickly realize that the music world is not as glamorous as they show it in television. In the pursuing of her dreams she does unbelievable things to be in “crème” of the entertainmentmusic.

It is important for young people to see these inequalities so that they can distinguish what is right and what is wrong. For example, many rap videos display half naked women who are degraded and presented as strippers and/or prostitutes. It is important for young girls to distinguish the differences between the video and real life so that they do view the video as guidelines for theirfuture.
What causes one of the highest paid professions in the world, to not be able to avoid gender inequalities and what are these inequalities? Professions in the entertainment industry including music are one of the highest paid professions in the world. It would be expected that because of this, these celebrities would be able to avoid gender inequalities. We often hear about the racialinequalities in the music industry, but it is not often that we hear about the gender inequality. Gender inequality has been a long battle that people of this world have been battling since the beginning of time. No matter where we look or how hard we try to avoid it, it is everywhere. It’s in our workplaces. It is in our homes, schools, government and in our sports. It’s even in the movies wewatch, for instance the Preacher’s Kid. The girl’s father raised a well behaved young girl that is corrupted almost immediately by the entertainment word. It seemed like her father efforts to have a daughter that will follow the right path gets tinted by the unequal world in the music industry. She loses her principles to please those that take advantage of innocent females in the industry. Weoften hear about gender inequalities in industries such as the workplace, sports, and schools. However where we do not hear about it too often is in the media and entertainment industry.
The media has a very large impact on how people live their life and an even larger impact on children and their self image. When these images of gender inequality are displayed throughout the media andentertainment industry, children get the wrong idea of how they should view themselves and how life really is or should be. We see these inequalities through movies and television shows, we hear it in our music, and we see them displayed on print advertisements and commercials. According to a research where the audience was young people, it says that “after viewing a music video by Michael Jackson, 80respondents described the video's portrayal of feminine and masculine images. A content analysis of the respondents' open-ended descriptions of the images indicate that there are significant gender differences in how young women and men socially construct the meaning of femininity in the video, particularly concerning the intersection of gender, sexuality and power. There are no major genderdifferences in the interpretations of the masculine image. The findings show that MTV texts have multiple meanings for the audience, and the interpretations of sexual imagery reflect traditional gender ideology about gender and sexuality”.The entertainment industry is a very influential and impressionable industry. Therefore, the topic of gender inequality should be discussed more often. It is...